


May the Stars Retain Their Lustre

by potterswinchesters



Category: Supernatural
Genre: (kinda), Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Canon Compliant, Castiel Loves Dean Winchester, Castiel and Dean Winchester Get Married, Dean Winchester Loves Castiel, Dean Winchester Whump, Emotionally Repressed Dean Winchester, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Michael!Dean, Miscommunication, Season/Series 14, dean’s in pain and cas is a saint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 08:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17557145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potterswinchesters/pseuds/potterswinchesters
Summary: “I can tell when you’re suffering,” Castiel says. “Your soul dims.”The thought that Cas is looking at his soul this very second is unnerving. Dean’s heart stutters. He begins a thousand different sentences in his head, but they don’t make it out.“One of the worst things I can imagine for you—besides death and despair—is that soul ever losing its lustre.”





	May the Stars Retain Their Lustre

Dean can close his eyes all he wants—no matter what, he still _sees_.

He sees the murders that Michael carried out with his hands. He sees the faces of the people the archangel tortured and broke. It reminds Dean so much of the souls that he tortured in Hell.

Sometimes, Hell and Michael merge and he can’t remember which is which. Waking hours are plagued with memories that feel like flames lapping at his skin. But as bad as the daytime is, the nights are always worse. REM cycles are ravaged by nightmares; like violent ocean waves, they crash against the walls of his mind, wearing the rock down to sand.

He isn’t drowning anymore—not like he was when Michael had him trapped in his own head.

But he _is_ adrift, and he can’t seem to find his way back to the shore.

* * *

One night, Dean wakes up screaming.

When his eyelids rip open, light hits him like a tsunami and he immediately squeezes them shut again. Treacherous tears break free, wet and hot like blood as they slip down his face. He hears his name distantly and cowers away from the sound, opting to reach beneath his pillow for a gun that cannot protect him. He knows exactly what this is: Michael has returned to claim him again, to—

_“Dean.”_

The sound is deep and rough and familiar. It brings him back down. Like gravity itself. Dean takes air into his lungs and realizes that he isn’t underwater.

He stops. Reassesses.

There are two hands on his shoulders and one on his face, but they’re gentle. Seeking to comfort, not to maim.

He’s in his room in the bunker. He’s _home_.

Dean eases his eyes open again and breathes a shuddering sigh of relief as two figures he recognizes come into focus.

Sam and Castiel each have a hand on one of his shoulders. Cas is using his other hand to cup the side of Dean’s face, just as he does when he heals him.

“Dean?” says Sam. “Can you hear me?”

“Turn off the lights,” Dean mumbles back, wiping at his face with the backs of his hands. _(He doesn’t want to see anymore.)_

Without asking for an explanation, Castiel’s hands fall away from Dean’s face and shoulder.

At the sound of the light switch flipping, Dean relaxes further and takes his hands away from his eyes. Light from the hallway trickles into the bedroom, outlining Castiel as he makes his way back to Dean and kneels down beside the bed.

Dean feels the weight of their concerned gazes on him.

“I’m okay,” he croaks, shrugging Sam off of him. “Seriously, I’m good. Go back to bed, Sammy. Don’t worry about me.”

Predictably, Sam ignores him. “Was it a nightmare again?”

“No, I just cry during my sex dreams,” he snaps. “Of course it was a goddamn nightmare.”

“Was it, uh… Michael?”

“Michael, Lucifer, Hell—what’s the friggin’ difference?” Dean implores. “Our entire life is a shitshow. It’s about time I started to lose my marbles, isn’t it? To be honest, I got no clue how I even lasted this long.”

“Dean, stop,” Sam chastises. There’s no real anger or frustration laced in his tone—he just sounds tired.

Dean gets it; the exhaustion they all have doesn’t ever go. It has anchored itself in the marrow of their bones.

“Do you want something? A glass of water?” Sam says, breaking the silence before it could set in. Without waiting for a response, he continues, “Yeah, I’ll get you a glass of water,” probably because he doesn’t know what else to do for Dean.

Sam sweeps from the room, leaving Dean alone with Castiel.

“I can take away your nightmares, you know,” Cas tells him immediately, placing his hand on Dean’s knee.

Dean tenses. The touch is comforting, but Dean knows he can’t let it linger too long, or they’ll have to acknowledge this unspoken _thing_ between them…

He can’t.

He counts to three in his head. Savours the feeling of Castiel’s touch. Then he stands up abruptly, and Castiel’s hand falls away.

In order for Cas to take his nightmares away, he’d have to use his grace, which means he might see inside Dean’s mind. Dean can’t let him do that. Not ever.

“Cas,” Dean blurts out. “I’m so tired, man.”

“I know,” says Cas.

“I feel it in my bones.”

“I know.”

A beat of silence passes. Though it’s dark, Dean can tell Castiel has moved to stand in front of him. Too close—always too close.

“I can tell when you’re suffering,” Castiel says. “Your soul dims.”

The thought that Cas is looking at his soul this very second is unnerving. Dean’s heart stutters. He begins a thousand different sentences in his head, but they don’t make it out.

“One of the worst things I can imagine for you—besides death and despair—is that soul ever losing its lustre.”

It’s an odd thing to say, but it makes Dean shiver.

Then Sam walks back in with a glass of water, and Dean closes off again.

* * *

Dean is not mentally stable enough to go on hunts for the time being, and he knows that, but it still hurts when Sam takes off with Jack without telling him.

It’s not even about the hunt—it’s about the fact that Dean promised himself that next time he was alone with Castiel, he’d finally tell him. He isn’t ready; not even a little bit. But he figures there’ll never be a perfect time.

So when he emerges from his room and spots Cas at the end of the hallway, he beckons for him to follow Dean into his room.

They’re the only two in the bunker, but Dean feels better closing the door just in case someone happens to swing by.

“Dean, what’s going on? You’re worrying me.”

Dean isn’t sure how to start, and anything he thought of saying when he was in the shower flies out the window when his gaze lands on Cas.

“Michael asked what people wanted,” he begins.

Dean has never been a poet or a wordsmith. The words don’t flow freely on their way out—they trip over each other. They quiver and fade out. They get caught in the cobwebs of his throat.

He continues nonetheless.

“He, uh… asked it a lot. It got me thinking—and I had so much damn time to do that. It got me thinkin’ about what it is that _I_ want, y’know?”

When he looks at Castiel, his eyes soften and plead for something. For understanding to dawn. For Cas to just _know_ —but he doesn’t.

He needs to know.

“I mean, all my life, it was never about what I wanted,” Dean explains. Guilt gnaws at him for saying it, and he doesn’t even know why. “For me, it was always, _What does Dad want? What does Sammy want?_ I guess I just… never gave myself the time to think about me. So what I’m trying to say is that what—what I want… it’s you.”

“What?” Castiel says in a voice so quiet it barely makes a dent in the air.

Dean’s eyes bear into Cas’s. His gaze travels over the angel’s face, from the crease of his brow to the inviting pink of his lips. Now that he’s allowed himself to want, he wants _everything_. It’s far too late to go back now.

“It’s you,” he forces himself to repeat.

Dean feels as though his heart is a caged bird fluttering against his ribs, struggling to break free. It’ll escape the moment he finally tells the truth, but it’s been locked away for so long that he can’t imagine setting it free. He continues nevertheless, because he needs to let it all out. Needs to say it out loud. Just once.

The words are so heavy on his tongue, carrying part of the weight that’s been pressing down on him for so long. “You’re what I want. More than I’ve ever wanted anything, Cas.”

“Dean, I don’t… I don’t understand,” says Castiel, eyebrows pulled together. “You mean…?”

“I _mean_ this,” Dean grunts, and he curls his fingers over the lapels of Castiel’s trench coat and hauls him forward until his breath is fanning Cas’s lips. “I mean you and me, _us_ ,” he whispers into the minuscule space between them. “I’ve never thought of you as a brother. Or as just a friend. It’s always been more than that.”

Dean doesn’t say _I love you_. He doesn’t shout it to the world from the rooftops. He doesn’t even whisper it into the shell of Castiel’s ear. He doesn’t know if he’s even capable of saying them ever again. But he can use other words.

“I want you,” he says quietly, eyes fluttering shut. They’re so close their noses brush, and Cas remains still. He doesn’t pull away. “I want everything with you, I—”

Whatever he was about to say is lost when Castiel closes the distance, pressing their lips together. It’s a fleeting moment, a chaste kiss, but when they break apart, Dean’s heart is beating a mile a minute. His hands tremble where they rest on Castiel’s lapels, but he holds on tighter to keep Cas where he is.

“Is that what you want?” Castiel inquires lowly, one of his warm hands finding its way to the back of Dean’s head. “I’d give you anything. _Anything_ , Dean. Tell me.”

Heat pools in Dean’s groin upon hearing those words. By some miracle, he finds his voice. “Is it what _you_ want?”

Castiel’s reply isn’t a verbal one. When he moves to grip the back of Dean’s thighs, Dean’s eyes fly open in surprise. Cas hoists him up onto the bedside table and then steps between his knees, his pupils swallowing the blue of his irises in a way Dean’s never seen before.

“Fuck,” Dean breathes, feeling his cock already filling out, beginning to strain against the zipper of his jeans.

Dean locks his ankles together and pulls Cas closer, whimpering embarrassingly when he feels Cas growing hard against him.

That night, Dean learns that Castiel kisses like he’s dying for it, and likes to pant love confessions into his mouth. “I’ve loved you for so long,” he pulls back to say, before diving right back in, pressing his mouth to Dean’s fervently. And when Dean mouths his way down Cas’s neck, Cas says, “You don’t know—how I’ve—hoped.”

They make quick work of their clothes and fall into bed together, both too far gone to drag what’s been building for ten years out any longer. Later, Dean will have time to memorize every inch of Castiel with his hands.

They’ll have time to do this properly later, when they’re both a little less starved.

* * *

It isn’t smooth sailing from there.

Dean’s nightmares don’t just disappear, nor does the weight on his shoulders. Castiel can’t chase the pain away with a kiss, and he can’t fuck the trauma out of him.

He doesn’t always know what Dean wants, either, since Dean’s still learning to ask for what he wants. By some miracle, every night, Castiel is right beside him. When he wakes up from a bad dream, Cas kisses his forehead and sifts his fingers through Dean’s hair. When he needs a distraction, Cas lowers his mouth onto Dean’s dick and holds his hand.

Having him around helps most of the time. Unless it doesn’t.

Like when Dean dreams he’s young again, reliving the night he snuck into CBGB and got drunk—but this time, John doesn’t come to save him. This time, his night ends with a man on top of him, holding him down, removing his clothes, crooning about his pretty lips; and Dean’s too young, too weak, too wasted to fight him off.

He wakes up thrashing, screaming, trying to escape the thing that’s holding him down. “Let go of me! Let GO—”

The arms caging him are gone in the blink of an eye.

“ _Dean_ ,” says Castiel. “Dean, it’s just me. You’re safe. You’re safe, I promise.”

The angel lets Dean compose himself without reaching for him. Dean puts his head in his hands. Drops of sweat roll down his neck and spine. He fills his lungs with air, then lets it escape in shaky, ragged exhales.

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine, Cas,” he lies through his teeth. “I can handle it.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“I don’t even remember what I was dreaming about, if I’m being honest.” _Lie, lie, lie._

“Dean,” the angel grouses. “I know you’re crying.”

“Goddammit, Cas, I ain’t lyin’—”

“Crying. I said crying.”

“I ain’t doin’ that either.”

Before Dean can react, Castiel’s hand is cupping Dean’s wet cheek, thumb wiping away a tear.

A snarl builds in Dean’s throat as he grabs Cas’s wrist and pries his hand away. “Don’t. Just— _don’t_.”

Castiel is silent for a long time. He climbs off the bed and takes a step backwards, away from Dean. “I’m sorry,” he replies.

Dean ignores him, dragging a hand down his face. “Shit. _Shit._ I hope I didn’t wake Sam or anyone else. The last thing I need is them coming in here and seeing us. Jesus Christ, you’re wearing my clothes. They’re gonna know. What the fuck was I thinking?”

“You’re ashamed,” Castiel states, bowing his head, “because my vessel is male. I understand. You can’t help it; it was instilled in you by your father.”

A bolt of anger courses through Dean. “Cas, don’t fucking bring my father into this,” he snaps. “Don’t you _dare_.”

Castiel lets out a weary sigh. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I think you… perhaps need some space. I can leave. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Dean’s a fucking coward. A pit sinks to the bottom of his stomach, but he says nothing.

Castiel turns the knob and the door swings open, but he pauses in the doorway. “Take as long as you need, Dean. And just so you know, if… if you’re never ready, that’s okay too. We can go back to the way we used to be. As long as I can be by your side for the rest of your life, that’s enough for me.”

And that’s when Dean breaks. He feels every emotion that had been building finally making itself known, a single horrifying thought the driving force of it all: _Cas thinks I don’t want him anymore._

He leaps forward and clutches onto Cas’s arm. “Baby,” he whimpers, needy and frantic. “Baby, no, please don’t—don’t leave me. I’m sorry, _I’m sorry_ , I can’t… I love you, love you so much— _Cas_ —”

If Castiel has any resolve at all, it melts away immediately. He gathers Dean in his arms, kissing his hairline over and over, holding the pieces together as Dean falls apart.

“’M so sorry, sweetheart, I don’t deserve you—I’ll never deserve you,” Dean gasps.

“You’ve done nothing wrong, my love,” Castiel coos. “You have it backwards.”

Dean shakes his head profusely against Cas’s shoulder and holds onto him like he’s the only life raft in the middle of the sea.

* * *

After that, Castiel doesn’t come to his room again. He tells Dean it’s because Sam will notice. “If you aren’t ready to tell him, perhaps we shouldn’t risk it,” he explains. There’s no annoyance—no disdain—in the way he says it. Dean knows he’s trying to give him space, but it just makes things awkward between them.

For three nights, Dean sleeps alone.

On the fourth, he creeps into Castiel’s room sometime past midnight.

The lights are off, so he assumes it’s empty and turns to leave.

“Dean?”

Dean whirls around and squints. “Cas?” he calls. “Why’re you sitting in the dark?”

“I was just… thinking,” Castiel answers. “Is something wrong?”

Dean feels around for the bed and climbs onto it, beside where he assumes Cas is.

“Yeah.” His eyes begin to adjust—he can tell that Cas is lying on his back, staring at the ceiling. “I miss you.”

Dean reaches for him, fingertips grazing their way down his arm until he finds his hand.

“I dunno who I am anymore, Cas,” Dean whispers into the dark.

Castiel turns onto his side to face Dean.

“Would you like me to tell you?” he asks.

Dean scoffs. “Sure. Give it a shot.”

Castiel doesn’t waste a fraction of a second. It’s like he’s had the answer ready—just waiting to be tipped from his lips—his entire life. “Dean Winchester, you are a beautiful miracle,” he says; Dean’s already protesting at the absurdity of such a statement, but Cas doesn’t let him. “You _are_ ,” he insists, and he sounds so sure of himself that Dean wants to believe him. “The amount of good held within you is immeasurable. The purity of your soul, despite every hardship you’ve endured, is something I have never seen before. And I am glad to have learned love from you, for never have I encountered a single living being that loves as deeply as you.”

His hand comes up to cup Dean’s face, thumb stroking the apple of his cheek. Everything, from Castiel’s voice to his touch, is reverent, and Dean doesn’t think this is what he deserves. Dean knows his anger is too violent to be kind, his love too selfish to be good, his actions too sinful to be pure of intent. No—Dean Winchester has never deserved softness. Not according to him.

Yet here Castiel is.

“You’re… a masterpiece,” Castiel says, sliding a hand down Dean’s side and resting it on his waist. “Every inch of you. Beautiful.”

“’M so lost. Feel like I’m not me anymore.”

“No. I promise you, my Dean is still here. Right here.” Castiel places his palm against Dean’s heart, holds it there for a few seconds. “He’s only in the dark sometimes, but he’s still here.”

For a long moment after Castiel has finished waxing poetic about him, Dean stays silent. His eyes burn with unshed tears. He closes them and focuses on the feeling of Castiel’s thumb gently ghosting over the bolt of his jaw.

“Marry me, Cas,” he breathes at last.

The words themselves feel like a vow.

Dean can _hear_ Castiel’s smile as he replies, “Okay.”

“I mean it.”

“Okay.” A pause. “But I don’t legally exist, and I believe you’ve legally died. Several times.”

Dean muffles a chuckle against Castiel’s shoulder. As much as he’d like a real wedding, with friends and family and walking down the aisle, that just isn’t _Dean and Cas_. They’ll never be normal—but it’s okay. They can make their own future, just as they always have.

“Who needs a stupid piece of paper to tell us we’re married, right?” Dean decides, blinking away the prickle of unshed tears. He reaches for Cas’s hand and pulls it to his mouth, placing a kiss on the knuckles. “Let’s just do it right here, right now, yeah?”

“How—what do you mean?”

A grin pulls at the corners of Dean’s mouth. “Get up, dumbass, I’ll show you. C’mon, stand up.”

Dean throws his legs over the side of the bed and stands to turn the lights on. Then he faces Cas and takes both of his hands. Cas’s hair sticks out in all different directions and the blue of his eyes is so beautiful that it makes Dean forget his newfound fear of the ocean.

Dean coughs. “Right, so we just stand like this. Say our vows or whatever.”

“Everything we’ve ever said to one another. Those are our vows. What’s next?” There’s a gleam of intrigue in his eyes.

“And then,” Dean starts, “it goes sorta like this.” He clears his throat. His heart rate is up again, but it’s nothing like when he has his nightmares. It’s different. “Do you, Castiel, take Dean Winchester to be your, um… _un_ lawfully wedded husband?”

“Of course.”

The genuine way Castiel says it causes a smile to dust Dean’s lips. “Cas, you’re supposed to say ‘I do’.”

“I do.”

“Do I, Dean Winchester, take Castiel to be my unlawfully wedded angel husband? I do.” He squeezes Cas’s hands and steps into his personal space. “I now pronounce us married for the rest of eternity. Guess you’re stuck with my annoying ass. Now kiss me to seal the deal.”

Unlike the others they’ve exchanged, this kiss isn’t loaded with lust or tension. It’s slow; unhurried. So soft it tugs a contented sigh from Dean’s lungs.

Castiel pulls back first to mutter, “I don’t think your ass is annoying. I actually like it very much.”

A chuckle bubbles up from Dean’s throat. “I damn well hope so, ’cause it’s the only ass you’re gettin’ for the next two hundred years.” In response to Cas’s questioning squint, Dean adds dramatically, “That’s right, sweetheart: now that we’re married, I’ve decided to live a lot longer than originally planned. Now I won’t say I’ll live _forever_ , ’cause that’s overshooting… but two hundred and forty seems reasonable.”

Castiel smiles at him as if he’s starstruck.

“What?” Dean asks.

“This moment.”

Dean quirks an eyebrow. “What about it?”

“If asked what it is that I want, that I desire, most in the entire world,” Castiel tells him, “it’s this moment.”

* * *

The next morning, Dean pulls a confused Cas to the kitchen by the hand and announces to Sam that they got hitched last night.

To his credit, Sam only spills half of his coffee before recovering and managing to choke out, “Without me?”

Dean shrugs, a grin playing about his lips. “It was a private ceremony. You wouldn’t have appreciated it.”

Cas looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. He kisses the smile off Dean’s face.

The world isn’t ending, and they’re happy, and everything—for once—is just as it’s supposed to be.


End file.
